Allan Kaprow was an American
painterPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
,
assemblagistAssemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects...
and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of
performance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
. He helped to develop the "
EnvironmentInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
" and "
HappeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years. Eventually Kaprow shifted his practice into what he called "Activities", intimately-scaled pieces for one or several players, devoted to the study of normal human activity in a way congruent to ordinary life.
FluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
,
Performance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, and
Installation artInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
was, in turn, influenced by his work.
Studies
Kaprow began his early education in Tucson, Arizona where he attended boarding school.
Later he would attend the High School of Music and Art in New York where his fellow students were the artists
Wolf KahnWolf Kahn is a German-born American painter.Kahn is known for his combination of realism and Color Field, and known to work in pastel and oil paint. He studied under Hans Hofmann, and also graduated from the University of Chicago...
, Rachel Rosenthal and the future New York gallerist Virginia Zabriskie.
As an undergraduate at
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Kaprow was influenced by
John DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
's book "Art as Experience"
. He studied in the Arts and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
as a graduate student. He received his
MAA Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree from
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in art history. He started in the
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
School of Fine Arts in 1947. It was here that he started with a style of
action paintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
, which greatly influenced his Happenings pieces in years to come.
Teachings
Through a long teaching career, he held teaching positions at Rutgers,
Pratt InstitutePratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
, the
State University of New York at Stony BrookThe State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....
, and the
California Institute of the ArtsThe California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
, before serving as a full time faculty at the
University of California, San DiegoThe University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
, where he taught from 1974-1993. He went on to study (time-based) composition with
John CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
in his class at the New School for Social Research, painting with Hans Hofmann, and art history with
Meyer SchapiroMeyer Schapiro was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for forging new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art...
. Kaprow started his studio career as a painter, and later co-founded
the HansaThe Tenth Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operated on very low budgets, often without any staff. Some artists became members...
and
Reuben GalleriesThe Tenth Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operated on very low budgets, often without any staff. Some artists became members...
in New York and became the director of the Judson Gallery. With John Cage's influence, he became less and less focused on the product of painting, and instead on the action. In the late 50s and early 60s while working as a Professor at
Rutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, he helped to create the group Fluxus, along with Professors
Robert WattsRobert Watts was an American artist best known for his work as a member of the international Avant-garde art movement Fluxus. Born in Burlington, Iowa June 14, 1923, he became Professor of Art at Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Jersey in 1953, a post he kept until 1984...
,
Geoffrey HendricksGeoffrey Hendricks is an American artist associated with Fluxus since the mid 1960s, and has styled himself as "cloudsmith" for his extensive work with sky imagery in paintings, on objects, in installations and performances. Hendricks was born in Littleton, New Hampshire in 1931...
, and
Roy LichtensteinRoy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
, artists
George BrechtGeorge Brecht , born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil...
, and
George SegalGeorge Segal was an American painter and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. He was presented with a National Medal of Arts in 1999.-Works:...
, and undergraduates
Lucas SamarasLucas Samaras , is an artist, born in Kastoria, Greece. He studied at Rutgers University on a scholarship, where he met Allan Kaprow and George Segal. While at Rutgers, he joined Gamma Sigma . He participated in Kaprow's "Happenings," and posed for Segal's plaster sculptures...
and
Robert WhitmanRobert Whitman is an American artist best known for his seminal theater pieces of the early 1960s combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making...
,
. This is when he started his "Happenings".
Chronology of Teaching Institutions
Rutgers University 1953-1961
Pratt Institute 1960-1961
State University of New York at Stony Brook 1961-1966
California Institute of Arts 1966-1974
University of California San Diego 1974-1993
The Happenings
In 1958, Kaprow published the essay "The Legacy of
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
". In it he demands a "concrete art" made of everyday materials such as "paint, chairs, food, electric and neon lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies." In this particular text, he uses the term "
happeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
" for the first time stating that craftsmanship and permanence should be forgotten and perishable materials should be used in art.
The "Happenings" first started as tightly scripted events, in which the audience and performers followed cues to experience the art. To Kaprow, a Happening was "A game, an adventure, a number of activities engaged in by participants for the sake of playing." Furthermore, Kaprow says that the Happenings were "events that, put simply, happen." There was no structured beginning, middle, or end, and there was no distinction or hierarchy between artist and viewer. It was the viewer's reaction that decided the art piece, making each Happening a unique experience that cannot be replicated. These "Happenings" represent what we now call
New Media ArtNew media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
. It is participatory and interactive, with the goal of tearing down the wall a.k.a. "
the fourth wallThe Fourth Wall is a 1992 play by the American playwright A.R. Gurney.It was originally produced in the United States in regional theatre...
" between artist and observers, so observers are not just "reading" the piece, but also interacting with it, becoming part of the art.
One such work, titled "Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts", involved an audience moving together to experience elements such as a band playing toy instruments, a woman squeezing an orange, and painters painting. His work evolved, and became less scripted and incorporated more everyday activities. Another example of a Happening he created involved bringing people into a room containing a large abundance of ice cubes, which they had to touch, causing them to melt and bringing the piece full circle.
Kaprow's most famous happenings began around 1961 to 1962, when he would take students or friends out to a specific site to perform a small action. Kaprow developed techniques to prompt a creative response from the audience, encouraging audience members to make their own connections between ideas and events. In his own words, "And the work itself, the action, the kind of participation, was as remote from anything artistic as the site was." He rarely recorded his Happenings which made them a one time occurrence.
Kaprow's work attempts to integrate art and life. Through Happenings, the separation between life, art, artist, and audience becomes blurred. The "Happening" allows the artist to experiment with body motion, recorded sounds, written and spoken texts, and even smells. One of his earliest "Happenings" was the "Happenings in the New York Scene," written in 1961 as the form was developing. Kaprow calls them unconventional theater pieces, even if they are rejected by "devotees" of theater because of their visual arts origins. These "Happenings" use disposable elements like cardboard or cans making it cheaper on Kaprow to be able to change up his art piece every time. The minute those elements break down, he can get more disposable materials together and produce another improvisational master piece. He points out that their presentations in lofts, stores, and basements widens the concept of theater by destroying the barrier between audience and play and "demonstrating the organic connection between art and its environment."
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-15247975/essays-blurring-art-and.html There have been recreations of his pieces, such as
"Overflow", a tribute to the original 1967 "FLUIDS"
HappeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
.
He has published extensively and was Professor Emeritus in the
Visual ArtsThe visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
Department of the
University of California, San DiegoThe University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
. Kaprow is also known for the idea of "un-art", found in his essays
http://readingbetween.org/artwhichcantbeart.pdf "Art Which Can't Be Art" and "The Education of the Un-Artist."
Many well-known artists, for example,
Claes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
, cite him as an influence on their work.
His influence is also evident at the
California Institute of the ArtsThe California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
, where he taught during his early formative years.
For more information on his work while at
Rutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, New Brunswick, NJ see
Fluxus at Rutgers UniversityThe mid-20th-century art movement Fluxus had a strong association with Rutgers University.Allan Kaprow and Robert Watts, both key figures in the movement, originally met while they were students at Columbia University; though only together there for one year, soon after they both began teaching at...
.
The Happening even had media coverage in the New York Times
Published works
Assemblage,Environments, and Happenings (1966) presented the work of like-minded artists through both photographs and critical essays, and is a standard text in the field of performance art. Kaprow's
Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life (1993), a collection of pieces written over four decades, has made his theories about the practice of art in the present day available to a new generation of artists and critics.
Quotes
- "The line between the Happening and daily life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible."
- "...the problem with artlike art, or even doses of artlike art that still linger in lifelike art, is that it overemphasizes the discourse within art..."
- "...lifelike art makers' principal dialogue is not with art but everything else, one event suggesting another."
- Referencing the passing of artist Jackson Pollock: "...there are two directions in which the legacy could go. One is to continue into and develop an action kind of painting , which was what he was doing, and the other was to take advantage of the action itself, implicit as a kind of dance ritual. Instead of making ritualistic actions, which might be one directions someone could take, I was proposing the hop right into real life, that one could step right out of the canvas, which in his case, he did while painting them."
- "I am not so sure whether what we do now is art or something not quite art. If I call it art, it is because I wish to avoid the endless arguments some other name would bring forth."
- "In this context of achievement-and-death, artist who make Happenings are living out the purest melodrama. Their activity embodies the myth of nonsuccess, for Happenings cannot be sold and taken home; they can only be supported..."
- "Habitats have always had this effect, but it is especially important now, when our advanced art approaches a fragile but marvelous life, one that maintains itself by a mere thread, melting the surroundings, the artist, the work, and everyone who comes to it into an elusive, changeable configuration."
- "Some of us will probably become famous. It will be an ironic fame fashioned largely by those who have never seen our work."
- "A play assumes that words are the almost absolute medium. A Happening frequently has words, but they may or may not make literal sense."
- "It has always seemed to me that American creative energy only becomes charged by such a sense of crisis"
- "This everyday world affects the way art is created as much as it conditions its response."
- "even when things have gone 'wrong', something far more 'right,' more relavatory, has many times emerged."
- "Artist refers to a person, willfully enmeshed in a dilemma of categories, who performs as if none of them existed."
- "Objects of every sort are materials for the new art: paint, food, chairs, electric and neon lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things which will be discovered by the present generation of artists..."
- "The young artist... will discover out of ordinary things the meaning of ordinariness. He will not try to make them extraordinary. Only their real meaning will be stated."
See also
- Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
- Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
- Gutai group
The Gutai group was an artistic movement and association of artists founded by Jiro Yoshihara in Japan in 1954...
- Tenth street galleries
The Tenth Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operated on very low budgets, often without any staff. Some artists became members...
- Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
- Performance Art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
- Improv Everywhere
Improv Everywhere is a comedic performance art group based in New York City, formed in 2001 by Charlie Todd. Its slogan is "We Cause Scenes."The group carries out pranks, which they call "missions", in public places...
- New Media Art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
External links
- Artcyclopedia Page for Allan Kaprow
- Overflow: A Reinvention of Allan Kaprow's Fluids, May 26-27, 2008
- Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, November 9/10/11 2006
- Allan Kaprow's "Tail Wagging Dog" and other writings first published in The ACT
- Interview with Allan Kaprow
- http://brooklynrail.org/2006-05/art/allan-kaprow-19272006
- http://www.ubu.com/historical/kaprow/index.html
- Allan Kaprow at Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
- Allan Kaprow - Art as Life at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, October 18, 2006 - January 21, 2007
- Allan Kaprow- Art as Life at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (The Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles, CA, March 23 - June 30, 2008
- Allan Kaprow Happenings reinacted in Eindhoven
- Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Allan Kaprow, Getty Vocabulary Program. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California.
- Allan Kaprow papers, ca.1940-1997. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California. Collection contains drawings, term papers, and notebooks from Kaprow's student days, followed by ca. 250 Project Files, comprising the complete extant documentation of Kaprow's Environments, Happenings, and Activities.
- Allan Kaprow versus Robert Morris. Ansätze zu einer Kunstgeschichte als Mediengeschichte article in German by Thomas Dreher on the competing theories on art by Allan Kaprow and Robert Morris
- Allan Kaprow Obituary
- Allan Kaprow Chronology